1. Field
The present application relates to commercial production of lettuce in the field and, more particularly, to commercial packaging of lettuce in the field using a wrap that has a body with an opening, and an elastomeric portion around the opening.
2. Related Art
The commercial fresh market lettuce industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Lettuce is produced and shipped year-round in the U.S. with the source of supplies changing with the seasons, with California and Arizona dominating U.S. production.
Three types of lettuce dominate commercial production: iceberg lettuce, leaf lettuce, and romaine lettuce. Of these three types, iceberg lettuce makes up the majority of the commercial lettuce production in the United States.
Commercial lettuce production involves in-field harvesting and packaging operations. These operations require a team of field workers, referred to as cutters and packers, who work together to commercially harvest and package lettuce in the field. In conventional commercial lettuce production, there is typically one packer for every cutter working as a team in the field.
Commercial lettuce production begins with in-field harvesting. The cutter manually cuts the stems of lettuce using hand-held harvesting knives. The cutter also manually trims the stem of the harvested head, and removes any loose outer leaves as part of the commercial harvesting process. Commercial harvesting is typically a manual process because lettuce heads tend to be somewhat irregular and delicate. After harvesting and trimming the head, the cutter begins the commercial packaging process by placing the harvested head into a bag, and leaving the bagged head on a packaging table for the packer.
The packer continues the commercial production process from where the cutter left off. The packer takes the bagged head from the packaging table by holding the open tail-end of the bag. The packer usually twists the lettuce until the bag is wrapped tightly around the head. The packer then takes the tightly twisted tail-end of the bag, and tapes the tail-end to the bottom of the bagged head with clear tape. Once taped, the packer places the bagged head into cardboard boxes, which are more commonly referred to as cartons. The cartons of bagged whole heads are then closed and placed on pallets. The palletized cartons are then transported to a cooling facility where they are vacuum-cooled and placed into a cold room. At the conclusion of the commercial packaging process, the pallets are shipped to destination markets, where they are ultimately shipped to end users.
The amount of time a packer spends for each head is typically longer than the amount of time a cutter spends. The cutter and packer work at different rates because the packer's movements of twisting and taping generally require more time than the cutter's movements of cutting and trimming. Since there is typically one packer for each cutter in every team of field workers, the cutter's productivity is thus slowed down by the packer's inefficiencies. In addition to the costs associated with decreased productivity among teams of field workers, there is also the cost associated with the tape and tape dispensers. Additionally, the wrap is also not re-usable for the end user, who usually has to cut off the twisted and taped end with scissors or a knife to open the packaged lettuce head.